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V 



The 

Battle-Ground 

Oak 




Just so, they say, old violins 
Soft echoes long have borne, 

To touch and thrill, and moving skill 
Of blasters dead and gone. 



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in 2010 with funding from 
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ADDRESS 

TO THE 

BATTLE-GROUND 
OAK 

AT OLD GUILFORD COURTHOUSE 
GREENESBORO, N. C. 

'■{-->-\' 

Circumference i8 Feet 
Spread of Bough gi 1-2 Feet 

By JOSEPH M, MOREHEAD 

President Guilford Battle -Ground Company 



GREENESBORO, N. C. 
JOS. J. STONE & CO. 
Anno Domini MCMIV 






Uiit 

Author 

(Person) 

22 '04 



The Battle-Ground Park contains one hundred 
acres, has twenty-three monuments^ five springs. 
Lake Wilfong and one of the finest fire-proof 
Museums of Revolutionary Belies and Auto- 
graphs in the Union, and four fine pieces of 
Statuary. It is the patriotic work of private 
individuals, aided hy the Legislature of North 
Carolina. 



Address to the 

Battle Ground Oak 



Staunch relic of the ages gone ! 

Child of the centuries! 
Your whisperings lave my spirits grave 

In hushed soliloquies. 



Spring after spring has brought its bloom 

And fall has bronzed it o'er; 
Yet here You stand serenely grand 

As in the days of yore. 



To you spring brings increase of strength, 

And fall but needed rest ; 
And loftier still with sturdy will 

You rear your royal crest. 



As summer's sun or winter's chill 

The face of nature sears, 
Within you write of time's slow flight — 

The score of dying years. 



Kings, Colonies, Republics, States 
Have sprung and grown to power, 

And in your day, beneath your sway. 
Have breathed their little hour. 



You saw the dawn of liberty. 
When freedom westward sped! 

The ages came ! beneath her flame 
The tyrant's might is shed. 



You saw within these "Western Wilds" 

An infant nation's birth, 
And watched it grow through many a throe — 

The noblest now on earth. 



Rude patriots sought your shelt'ring boughs 

When Britain's murd'rous might 
Their hearth-stones strewed with tears and blood 

And made all nature night. 



[Unarmed, unskilled, unclad, unshod, 

Determined to be free, 
Your sires, sir, and mine right here, 

With life bought liberty.] 



Near you the wary, weary Greene 
His war-worn blanket spread ; 

And far around this sacred ground 
Still sleep his glorious dead. 



In silence for one hundred years 

You've guarded well this spot — 
Each rood a grave of patriot brave — 

And seen their mem'ries rot. 

4 

Cry *' shame", thou Witness of the deeds 

Of these blood-stained ones! 
With tongue of flame cry out "shame", "shame 

On their degenerate sons. 

Cry "shame" till roused to duty's call 
This broad land brooks no pause, 

And we atone in brass and stone 
Full worthy of the cause. 



Wave on ! and with your country 's flag 

Still flaunt your front on high ! 
And storms that blow and floods that flow 

For evermore defy. 

{Over) 



The vast body of the Revolutionary patriots 
in the North should take notice of this North 
Carolina work * * a field preserved and paid 
for, with its history collected and preserved on 
tablets and monuments. Those who have brought 
it to success are at the sunset of life. It would 
he in every sense fitting if the National Govern- 
ment should receive this finished work of patriot- 
ism and provide for its future care. 

GENERAL HENRY V. BOYNTON 

In Washington Post, July, igoj 



DEU y iyu4 



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011 712 370 4^ 



